Detective Comics Vol. 1 #441

With only two entirely new stories at the start and end and having everything in the middle be reprints of older stories ranging from the 40s to the 60s, 1974s Detective Comics Vol. 1 #441 is certainly an interesting read. The first story sees Batman take on a criminal named the Judge who puts traps in an abandoned building that the Dark Knight has to go through to find Robin. Reprints from older DC stories, and even from other companies that DC eventually acquired, include Plastic Man solving a murder, two stories wherein Batman investigates murders foreshadowed by paintings, the magical Ibis the Invicible keeping the god of destruction from escaping, an experiment made to try to turn Eclipso good, and an adventure with The Spider. While the last story sees the Paul Kirk II version of Manhunter and Christine St. Clair investigating a terrorist organization in Istanbul. Overall this issue has a good collection of stories that showcase the strengths, and a bit of the weaknesses, of comics from the four decades. The story and writing for them are very imaginative and tells their story well, but also suffer from overuse of exposition. Dialogue can also go for way too long and has a tendency to fill in the artwork, thus keeping the reader from actually seeing what they're saying. As fun as the stories can be, the older they are the more obvious it is that logic wasn't always a key factor to how the stories continue and ended. And that's fine as even without the logic, their writing does keep you invested and entertained throughout. The artwork for all eight stories are pretty good and showcase the evolution of how comics were drawn from the 40s to the 70s. One thing that's consistent for the most part in the four decades is the attention to detail of the characters and locations. Although one thing that the newest stories have over the older ones is that more panels are used to showcase action rather than having things happen off screen and being exposited. But all in all Detective Comics Vol. 1 #441 is a great collection of comic book stories with not a single one being a chore to get through. Over all: 100%

Top list so far for 3rd set of comics:

1. The Complete Peanuts Vol. 15: 1979-1980

2. Daredevil Vol. 1 #170

3. The New Teen Titans Vol. 1 #1

4. Green Arrow Vol. 1 #1

5. Star Wars: Dark Empire #1

6. Deadman: Love After Death #1

7. Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck: The Don Rosa Library Vol. 1

8. Detective Comics Vol. 1 #441

9. Eternals by Jack Kirby: The Complete Collection (Eternals (1976-1978))

10. Hulk Vol. 5 #1

11. Avnegers: War Across Time #1

12. The Yellow Kid

13. Archie and Me #132

14. Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1

15. Action Comics Vol. 1 #674